i Light Marina Bay 2012

Now in its second edition, i Light Marina Bay is dubbed as Asia’s first and only sustainable light art festival. I’ve missed the first i Light 2 years ago and made a point not to miss it again this time.

Spanning the entire Marina Bay area including the Merlion Park, Marina Promontory, the Float @ Marina Bay (a.k.a. Floating Platform), Waterfront Promenade and the area in front of the Marina Bay Sands, it consists of 31 light installations created by artists around the world. The installations made use of energy-efficient lighting and aim to create awareness of energy-saving lighting technology for the urban environment.

Due to the large area which the festival spans, I visited it 3 times in order to see and (try to) cover the installations. Here are a few which I found to be more interesting.

Light of the Merlion

For many years, the Merlion has been an icon of Singapore, and for this edition of i Light Marina Bay, OCUBO from Portugal has been commissioned to produce the installation titled “Light of the Merlion.” This is an interactive installation whereby the visitors can try their hands at “painting” the Merlion in colourful splashes of light using an interactive touch-screen display. The colours are then projected onto body sides of the Merlion’s body.

A girl "paints" the Merlion in bright colours while a family member looks on happily in the background.
The Merlion "painted" in colourful shades of light projected onto its body. In the background is the Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort and the ArtScience Museum
The Merlion lit up with colourful projections against the backdrop of the Singapore Skyline.

Garden of Light

Utilising 3D digital mapping technology, the Garden of Light is an animated projected onto 3 of the “petals” of the Lotus-shaped ArtScience Museum. It uses light and sound effects to tell a story about environmental sustainability and highlight the beauty of the natural world.

The fully lit-up installation titled "Key Frames" In the background is another installation titled "Garden of Light" projected onto the ArtScience Museum.
The Garden of Light installation as seen from under the Helix Bridge.
"Garden of Light" as seen from the pod nearest to the Marina Bay Sands/ArtScience Museum.

The Gate

Created by Li Hui from China, The Gate uses many low-powered lasers framing a door, conveying the sense of entering another realm.

"The Gate" by Li Hui from China.

I also had the accidentally opportunity during an event organised by Marina Bay where during a toilet break, a few of us participants discovered that the “back” of the installation is just as interesting.

The back of "The Gate" is just as interesting as the front, with the reflection of the lasers at the bottom forming a nice symmetry of the laser lights.

EnLIGHTenment

EnLIGHTenment is created by Edwin Tan from Singapore, and uses a series of multi-coloured light tubes to give the visitor a “Yes/No” answer after he presses a button at the console. It’s quite fun to stand and watch/photograph the visitors as the installation answers their questions. These are usually more fun than the installation itself.

In a show of racial harmony, a Malay woman and a chinese child have fun playing with the EnLIGHTenment installation at i Light Marina Bay 2012.
A couple seeks an answer at this installation titled "Enlightenment" at i Light Marina Bay 2012.

There are many more installations (27 more to be exact) and I won’t talk about all of them here. Visit my Flickr Photoset to see more photos of other installations or visit the festival and soak in the atmosphere. i Light Marina Bay ends on 1 Apr 2012.

3 comments

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